A Saucerful of Secrets
by windspans
Summary: #7: Holmes has always been fond of mysteries, and this one is more interesting than any other so far. - A collection of shorts, ranging from AU to angst to fluff to light crack. Blame the shkinkmeme.
1. menage a trois

Irene flits in and out of his life, every time a new ring at her finger and a wardrobe to match. Holmes does not mind so much. He knows her, is annoyed at her coquettish smiles and her quicksilver moods, but he is resigned to it. And while he has always been good at lying to himself, this is the one falsehood he has given up on maintaining: he likes her, quite possibly cares for her. It is in part due to her fearlessness, he suspects; the way she laughs as she flaunts the law right under his nose and dances away from trouble. Her nimble fingers have a part in that too—the play of them over the front of his shirt and inside his pockets, the twirl of them in his hair. Irene steals the way Holmes deducts: quickly, automatically and masterfully. He would know: he keeps track of her exploits through Europe. She sends him letters, which are all alike—a list of names, and, each time, another one crossed off. He does not mind that either. She always comes back to him, does she not?

So really, he is not all that surprised when he comes home one late evening to find her in the study, pressed close against Watson and kissing him rather thoroughly. He clears his throat, his brows raised as he steps further into the room and discards his hat to the side. Irene smiles at him, eyes glinting with amusement, and does not draw away. "The lady would not wait", Watson says, wryly, and is pulled down in yet another kiss for his trouble. Then Holmes is at their side, an arm coming to rest at Watson's shoulder and the other at Irene's hip, as he leans in to nibble at his friend's parted lips before turning to Irene, a bit possessive but mostly indulgent.

Irene grins like a satisfied cat, and licks her lips thoughtfully. "He tastes like you", she pronounces, then tilts her head, adds "only sweeter."

"Does he?" Holmes sounds intrigued. Watson rolls his eyes. Irene smirks. The following succession of events is somewhat confused; at one point they trip against the dog, at another Holmes' suspenders end up around Watson's wrists; Irene discovers some of the more _interesting _uses of a violin bow, and Watson takes a particularly hands-on approach to reviewing the female anatomy.

The headboard may never quite recover.

* * *

**A/N:** Again for the meme, prompt:

DO IT.

_One night and one more time,  
Thanks for the memories,  
Even though they weren't so great,  
**He tastes like you, only sweeter**_


	2. unfinished duet

**unfinished duet**

Holmes realizes ten minutes after leaving the apartment that he has forgotten his hat. While this usually only a minor concern, easily brushed aside, today it seems like an intolerable oversight, and so it is that he finds himself back at 221B. It should have been simple: walk into the sitting room, rummage through the clutter until the missing item is found (or, were that to fail, borrow one of Watson's) and leave again.

Instead he stops as he reaches the sitting room, head tilting in puzzlement as what sounds suspiciously like someone drawing sounds from _his_ violin. He cannot help the irritation that bubbles in him at the thought; he has always been territorial when it comes to possessions, and the violin is sacred. It is unthinkable that any hands but his should ever touch it.

Or so he thinks, before he peers into the room and is forced to reconsider his stance on the subject. For there sits Watson, facing away from the door, fingers plucking at the strings and looking determined, and Holmes is too busy wondering what on earth Watson is thinking to hold onto his anger.

Then Watson stands, and for an instant Holmes is distracted by the way the motion ever so briefly pulls his shirt taut over his shoulders, hints at the shifting muscles and the surprisingly soft skin underneath. Watson's subsequent tucking of the violin under his chin in a rather accurate imitation of Holmes' stance when he actually bothers to stand up to play. It is, of course, not perfect: Holmes is quick to notice the hesitancy in the positioning of fingers on the strings, the subtle discomfort as Watson shifts to avoid putting to much weight on his bad leg. All in all, it is a commendable effort.

Holmes cringes instinctively as the bow starts moving, knowing all too well the horrifying discordances that can happen with an inexperienced player, then stops himself mid-wince, blinking, because while the sounds Watson is drawing out of the instrument are not quite harmonious, they are most certainly not the horrid screeches he expected.

He looks again, and feels like slapping himself for being an idiot when he notices what he should have seen from the beginning: this is not the first time Watson's tried his hand at the violin. The bow moves in firm, though hesitant, strokes, and the fingers on the board are only off by a few millimetres. Holmes tries not to be delighted by the way Watson's brows are furrowed in concentration as he tries to replicate by ear and memory one of the less complicated tunes Holmes likes to play, and fails miserably.

If he is honest with himself, there is also something incredibly appealing about the way Watson's arm follows the bow's slow motions, the arch of his wrists at the violin's neck. The tilt of his head exposes a tantalizing portion of his neck, and Holmes can no longer resist.

Silently he steps into the room. Watson still hasn't noticed his presence, too focused on the violin, and Holmes takes full advantage of the fact to creep behind the man and press himself against him, chin tucked over his shoulder and hands reaching for his. Watson startles against him, bow jerking in his hand and scraping against a string in a most unpleasant way, but does not react further. Holmes is secretly disappointed, but does not show it. He nips at the base of Watson's jaw, playful. "How long have you been practicing?"

Watson chuckles, a low, lazy sound that curls delightfully in Holmes' ears. "I wondered how long it would take you to notice," he says. Then, just as Holmes starts to grow impatient, "Two months."

Quick calculations: in the past couple months he has not been out of the house alone more than half a dozen times, and never more than for more than three hours, except for that one time he'd gone boxing and cracked a rib or two. Watson cannot have practiced all that much in that time. That he has at all makes Holmes extremely intrigued, and the images that drift unbidden in his mind, of Watson taking the violin up for the first time, reverent and not a little curious, blue eyes certainly sharp with focus, make him hot under the collar.

Then Holmes realizes that Watson is still, no longer playing. This, he decides, will not do. Shifting a little, he lays his right hand on Watson's own, gently nudging his fingers into a more correct position and guiding them, and the bow, into resuming. Watson catches on instantly, and agreeably consents to being led through the motions. Holmes' left hand snakes on the other side to the fingerboard, prods those thin surgeon's fingers into their proper place, and he admires it all from where he stands, moulded against Watson's back and not-so-secretly revelling in the heat that seeps through the thin layers of fabric between them.

"Why?" he asks, and Watson's smile is, from this point of view, crooked but still brilliant.

"To better understand you," comes the answer, and he is surprised at how much it affects him. He does not show it, of course, but he hums against Watson's skin, and does not fail to notice how, slowly, haltingly, but surely, the violin starts to accompany his voice.

* * *

Prompt: WATSON HAS BEEN SECRETLY PLAYING HOLMES' VIOLIN WHILE HE'S OUT BECAUSE HE'S TRYING TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY.

HOLMES COMES HOME EARLY/UNEXPECTEDLY ONE DAY TO FIND WATSON PLAYING HIS VIOLIN AND ITS LIKE HIS TWO LOVES COMING TOGETHER AND HE'S NEVER BEEN SO TURNED ON BEFORE IN HIS LIFE.


	3. many a mused rhyme

**many a musèd rhyme**

Watson has not lived this long with Holmes without picking up some observation skills of his own. It was but a week ago that Lestrade came to ask for their assistance in the Ripper case, his lip curled in scorn at that name but using it for lack of a better denomination. Holmes had been dismissive, of course, but there had not been a single case in the past two months and the inactivity had very obviously driven him near-insane, despite the doctor's efforts to keep him distracted, so that he did not overly protest when roped into the investigation.

Watson would have been relieved, really, had he not started to pick up on small details, little, seemingly-unconnected events that had thus far gone on unnoticed: Holmes' continued insomnia, the marked circles under his eyes which he had previously attributed to one of those moods that took him when bored; the razors and scalpels mysteriously vanishing from his effects, which he'd simply thought misplaced in the infinite clutter of the apartment before a thorough search expedition yielded no results; the dog's sudden skittishness around Holmes, attributed to one experiment too many… All small things that alone would not have warranted a second look, but that together weaved to form a disturbing picture.

He dismisses it as the product of an overtired mind at first, the idea so very absurd it is laughable. Then he wakes up one night to find the side of the bed unoccupied, and can find Holmes nowhere in the house; he goes back to bed, but the remainder of his sleep is disturbed by dreams of shadows and flashes of dark eyes. In the morning Holmes strolls in, hat askew and missing his coat, and smiles and laughs, hands aflutter like sparrows taking wing, and Watson chases the dark of his thoughts away to joke back, and all would be well but for the news, received in the evening, of yet another victim found, throat ravaged and sliced open from neck to groin. Watson's mind, treacherous thing that it is, cannot help then but to circle around memories of that morning, that image of Holmes sprawled on his chair and laughing: the open face, the easy smile, the mud spotting the hem of his trousers, the dark stain lingering on his sleeve.

Then Holmes comes home with an unexplainable cut twisting over his upper arm, and while Watson is silent as he cleans the wound, he is attentive, carefully looking for any sign that something is wrong. Nothing. He tells himself he is relieved, and insists on accompanying him to investigate the crime scenes. The resistance is minimal, Holmes visibly pleased to have him along, and Watson gets his first close look at one of the victims. Doctor though he is, and even having seen grotesque wounds at war, he still recoils a bit at the sight: the woman is a mess of congealed blood and lacerated skin, entrails exposed and organs torn apart. Under what once was her stomach and is now so much tattered meat he glimpses white; the spine, he thinks, and has to look away, ever so briefly. Holmes is busying himself with examining the surroundings, and when he does get to the corpse his mouth twists in what Watson recognizes as disappointment: not at the victim, but at the perpetrator—it is the expression Holmes reserves to those who he thought would offer a good challenge, but fall short of his expectations. A small part of Watson sighs in relief then, appeased. The rest of him watches, and watches, and waits.

And, disappointed or not, they still cannot find him. The police is on alert, the populace wary and jittery, Holmes makes derogatory comments on the Ripper's complete lack of subtlety. Still he eludes capture.

Watson decides, finally, that Holmes knows nothing. He complains of tiredness, does not seem to remember anything of his night-time disappearances and stares at his breakfast like he has no idea when he even sat at the table, and even he is not so great an actor as to being able to fake his way through days and days. So Watson says nothing, and does not think of how yet another scalpel has disappeared, or how he once said that Holmes could have been the greatest criminal in the world. That way lies madness, he thinks, and does not stop to ask himself if perhaps madness has not waited for him but come in uninvited, and there to stay.

He does not think, when the mattress dips under Holmes' weight at three thirty in the morning, about where he could have gone to these past five hours. He does not wonder, as rough lips gently press on his, why the smell of formaldehyde clings to his clothes, and is content to sigh into Holmes' mouth, pliant and eager for contact. He does not ask about the dark ink that stains the tips of those thin fingers, just arches into the touch and bites his lip to hold sound in, brings his hands to thread through the messy (wet) hair, spreads his legs a little wider and mouths noiseless nothings against that warm skin. When Holmes makes love to him Watson looks into his eyes and searches wildly, desperately, for the monster he fears, suspects (knows) lurks under the face of the man he loves, but finds nothing but affection there, and perhaps a quiet sort of desperation which does not even know itself.

On his skin Holmes' hands dance like birds in flight. Watson closes his eyes, and hopes they never land.

* * *

Prompt (paraphrased): Holmes and Watson are working on Jack the Ripper's case, and Watson starts to realize that Holmes really is the killer. The thing is, Holmes himself doesn't know it.  
Title from Keat's 'Ode to a Nightingale'.


	4. voices carry

**i.**

Holmes' brows rise in question when Watson strides into the room and makes his way to his customary chair to sink into it, hands rising to his face in an unfamiliar gesture of exhaustion. There is a question hovering at his lips, but he holds it in, not blind to the way usually steady hands are shaking or to the flecks of dark red still spotting the edge of a sleeve. A child, he surmises, or perhaps a woman. Watson loathes the helplessness that comes with those cases, and they affect him more than any other. Nothing Holmes says can have any effect, he knows, so instead he picks up the violin and starts playing, a soothing little tune that lifts and trills, and smiles, as Watson ever so slowly starts to relax.

**ii.**

There's a case and they're standing back-to-back in a filthy back alley by night, surrounded by a group of rather unsavoury characters. There is no time for words; a shared look suffices. With spare, calculated strikes Holmes disables two of their opponents, and behind him Watson's cane cuts through the air and sends three more to the ground. The one man left standing stares for a second, then turns on his heel and starts running.

The lamplight casts its pale glow over them. Their eyes meet again. They smile, and take chase.

**iii.**

It starts out as a simple argument over the dog again, then somehow degenerates into an all-out fight, punches thrown and snarls volleyed from either side as they grapple over the tigerskin rug, words tossed aside to let fists do the talking. Watson is taller, heavier, but Holmes is all wiry strength and dirty tricks; a vicious jab at the doctor's bad leg has him flinching back, and it is all Holmes needs to get the advantage, flipping them over and pinning Watson under him. They are both flushed, both breathing a little heavily. Now would be the time for Holmes to apologize, maybe, or gloat, but he does not. Instead he leans in, hands still firmly holding Watson down, and kisses him.

**iv.**

Then they move to the bedroom, where it is no longer a fight but a dance, body against body, mouth against mouth; hands light and gentle over bruised skin, arms and legs tangled awkwardly and moans muffled by kisses, an eager, desperate study of longing and pleasure and dependence. There are no words here; it is too fragile a peace, too much of a beginning.

**v.**

The wedding is a quiet, solemn affair. The sun falls in delicate colors through the stained glass, paints the scene in half-tones and muted shades. Watson's eyes, Holmes notices, are very blue as they flash to him. He nods minutely in answer to the question implied in that glance; breathes, closes his eyes, and holds his peace.

**.i.**

Watson finds Holmes near collapsed in yet another damp alley, standing only thanks to sheer stubbornness and dripping blood all over the pavement. Exasperation wars with worry, to be chased away by what feels suspiciously like sorrow when dark eyes blearily focus on him then blink, suspicious and disbelieving. "Didn't think you'd come back", he manages to rasp out. "Why're you here?"

Watson would roll his eyes if he weren't so stung. "You bloody _idiot_", he says, and proceeds to drag him away, towards the cab waiting for them. "I'm taking you home."

* * *

**Prompt:** (x) times they didn't say anything, and one time they did.


	5. the sky is empty

**A/N: **Two drabbles, Watson/Mary and Holmes/Watson respectively.

* * *

**empty spaces  
**

Even when he sleeps at her side, warm and solid and his heart whispering softly under her ear, there is an ocean between them. When she touches him it is as if through a veil, and when his lips press against hers it is but a fleeting caress. Sometimes when she wakes she is alone, and she closes her arms around the empty cold spaces there; her eyes fall shut, her mind traces all the shapes of loss and absence. She whispers _come back home, love, come back to me, please, I miss you_, and knows he never really will.

* * *

**the wrong side of the sky**

You have always been incapable of resisting challenges, and so you went; you would, you know it, go again. But there are things you regret: these days the winter sky is the faded blue of his eyes, and your fingers tap out the beats to his favourite tunes. At night you lie alone, the words you've never said trembling under your skin. Your mouth moves around the syllables of his name, as though calling him from far away, but over the sound-memory of his voice, his laughter, his smile, all you hear is the low implacable rumble of Reichenbach Falls.


	6. little impulse

_Four times Holmes almost kissed Watson and the first time he did.  
_

1.

The first time he meets John Watson, he takes in the man's exhausted look, the pronounced limp and the steadiness of his hands. Here is a man who has been lonely, he thinks, and wonders how he would take to being kissed. It is only a moment's thought, quickly dismissed in favour of his current experiment, but it remains at the back of his mind for the days, and weeks, and months, and years to come.

2.

Watson is magnificent after a fight, breath quickened, body thrumming with unspent energy and eyes burning blue and wild. There is a stain of blood at his lips, that might even be his, and Holmes does not think he has ever wanted anything more than to lick it off right here and now.

3.

There are nights when he cannot sleep, and he wanders through the apartment, hands empty and restless. Tonight there is a small sound coming from the bedroom, and he pads inside to find Watson curled up amid twisted sheets, brow creased and fingers scrabbling at the approach of some personal ghost. Holmes entertains the thought of smoothing the tousled hair back, of soothing him back into fitful sleep. Of pressing his lips to those parted lips, and see Watson blink sleepy eyes open, and smile.

He walks away, silent, and tells his hands to stop shaking.

4.

Watson is leaving. He's leaving and he is probably not coming back—not for real, not outside of friendly, courteous visits—and Holmes, for all his intelligence and genius cannot get the words out. Actions would serve just as well, in a pinch, but his body rebels, and all he can do is stare as Watson sets about to put his things away. He wants to pin him against the wall, taste him and show him all that he has been trying to explain, but he can't. He can't, and he watches, and he tells himself it's for the best.

5.

He's ready for this. The falls roar in the distance and Holmes knows with the sort of brutal clarity that comes in desperate times that this is the last day of his life. He almost calls Watson back then, wants to go on with no regrets, but then again he's always been too good at lying, and now the truth feels obscene and too painful to bear. He walks to Moriarty and smiles, humorless, and as his heart beats heavy in his chest he bids himself to forget. This, too, shall pass.

6.

He's alive and it's been years and oh god he never thought he'd see him again. And Watson is a bit shattered, a bit tired and a bit angry but he's still Watson, and it's so much he can't stop himself and Watson against his mouth breathes _yes Holmes god yes_, and maybe it was worth it after all.


	7. lovers and liars

**Prompt: **_Psycho serial!killer Holmes. Watson is his next victim. Except things go...awry. And he keeps telling himself he can always kill Watson later. After he's worked out the fascinating puzzle._

* * *

He thinks, on that first day, that he knows all there is to know about John Watson; at the very least, all that matters—the facts that make him who he is, which is to say a damaged, tired man who still wakes up at night with the whistle of bullets ringing in his ears and ghosts flickering in and out of mirrors. A man with no one left, already half-forgotten by the world. _Perfect_, Holmes thinks, and considers all the myriad ways to kill a man.

Except the good doctor is not so dull, not so predictable after all. Every time Holmes is about to make his move Watson does something like getting involved in a brawl and knocking out three men with no apparent effort, or kicking open a recalcitrant, locked door. He has nothing to do with his days, he says, so Holmes lets him tag along on those of his adventures which are the least morally reprehensible, because some lines should not be crossed lightly, and every new little piece of the puzzle that is John Watson is carefully collected, considered and stored. Holmes, in the darker recesses of his mind, wonders how much of a fight Watson would put up if he were to try to kill him, how long he'd take to seriously start fighting back; if, perhaps, he'd have the presence of mind to go for a weapon.

Then, just when he thinks he's finally got him figured out, he realizes Watson's in love with him. And it's like a whole new facet of the game revealing itself. Holmes prods and snarks and yells, irritates and insults and tests the boundaries, only to discover that there are none. Watson takes all of the abuse Holmes heaps on him, quietly and stoically, and when Holmes tries issuing a grudging compliment, just for kicks, Watson smiles so brilliantly it almost hurts to watch. There is a story behind this all, Holmes thinks, for no man can become this blindly devoted, so desperately dependent, without having a reason for it. It is a good thing: Holmes has always been fond of mysteries, and this one is more interesting than any other so far.

Mary comes as a distraction just when things are getting too repetitive. The puzzle shifts; the pieces are the same, but the motif is different. How far, Holmes wonders, can he push before the balance falls, as it will eventually, inevitably, on Mary's side, and stays there? And how long can Holmes keep him to himself? How strong are those chains of affection that Watson used to bind himself with, and how tightly wound? Holmes is a curious, curious man, and this whole thing—the guessing, the testing, the games—is almost as thrilling as a hunt, as the feel of another's heart slowing, stopping under his hands.

He still wonders how Watson's pulse would flutter at his fingers—like a flurry of wings, a trapped bird, perhaps, or maybe more like the trembling staccato of rain against a window at night; how he would bleed, crimson swirls over the light sand of scar tissue, how his eyes would crack like painted glass from betrayal and hurt and disappointment. What he would say. What he wouldn't.

_Tomorrow_, Holmes tells himself, to quell the lurking, prowling murmurs of his mind; _Tomorrow I will kill him, finally_, and never does.


	8. coagulate

**Prompt: **_Holmes is dying a slow and very painful death from illness or injury. Watson takes pity on him and helps him die._

* * *

You haven't seen this much blood in years, or if you have, not like ithis/i; not streaked in dark, ever-widening lines gleaming in the dull light as it continues to flee the broken body at your feet, not blossoming in strange jagged spirals as it seeps from veins to skin to fabric, a sluggish flow of red that won't stop spreading and a low sound you had hoped never to hear, the soft grinding of broken bones and breathing like a rustle of disturbed feathers.

Not on Holmes.

He's wearing one of your shirts. It's ruined, sleeves torn and collar dirtied and dark with dirt and blood, and you think that spot of white in the smudge of red that is his side might not be linen but bone.

"Do I—" he coughs, a sick wet sound that makes your heart stutter against your ribs. He's smiling. His teeth gleam red. "—really look—" His hand finds yours, and even as you clasp it, feel the tremble of long fingers and take fleeting comfort in the retreating warmth of it, you wish he'd stop moving, "—that bad?"

iIdiot/i, comes the fond thought, but all you manage to say is a strange muddle of syllables, and a sob. It sounds a bit like "I'm sorry" and a bit like "Don't die" and a lot like "Please."

"Come on now," he manages, and it's so low you'd have to strain to hear him if you weren't so focused on him already, and if this godforsaken alley hadn't been so silent already, like maybe even the buildings around them were holding their breaths and watching, watching.

Waiting.

And you're no fool, you know as well as he does how this will end. You know him, you know what h meant by that icome on/i; Sherlock Holmes will never beg, but he can ask, he can order, he can suggest.

He's asking now, and you—well, you've never been able to really tell him ino/i, have you?

There's the gun tucked at your side and there's him bleeding out steady and slow all over the pavement, and you've seen enough hopeless cases to know that this is beyond any treatment. How you wish you didn't.

"Don't—" he starts, and coughs again. Every inhale seems to break something inside of him; every exhale shatters the remnants. He's always been so thorough. "—make Mary wait too long." And if that's not a blessing then you don't know what it is, and that he would give it now—this is the end, writ out and stretched in the thin wavering spaces between the two of you.

"I'll try," you say. What you do not, he knows already.

You've got his hand in yours, and you cock the gun with the other one. He's nice enough to close his eyes when you level it, and you're left alone in wondering whether the steadiness of your hand means anything about you.

He sighs, slow and painful.

In the silence the shot barks like a hound calling for a lost master, and when it rises between the facades it takes your heartstrings with it.

After that you don't move. You're not sure you could, even if you wanted to. It takes Lestrade's hand at your arm, a clamor of voices, a little shove. He calls a cab, sits you in it. The streets pass as though set in the deepest of fogs.

You don't say a word when you get home, and Mary doesn't ask anything, merely steps aside to let you in. You're not sure where you're going, but in the end you're standing in front of the mirror and you would doubt this tired man were you, except—

There's blood on your lips still, from when you kissed his brow.


End file.
